What You Need to Know About Lighting a Barn

If a barn is maintained properly, it can be an ideal place to get important work done, store equipment, and care for livestock and other animals. Proper illumination inside and outside a barn is essential for safety, security, and productivity. The key is understanding factors that influence your lumens requirements.

Among those factors are:

• Size and layout of the barn. Larger barns with higher ceilings require more lumens. Layout issues include obstacles or partitions affecting light distribution.
• The barn’s purpose. Is it primarily for livestock, storage, or as a work area? Or a combination of two or more of them?
• How much space is required for each usage?
• Does the barn receive natural light during the day?

High Bay Lights for Inside a Barn

The following are general guidelines for lumens requirements for the inside of a barn, where safety and productivity are the goals. (We’ll look at lighting for outside a barn in a moment.) Keep in mind that the height at which lighting is hung is a factor.

• Provide between 10-20 lumens per square foot for storage areas. This will aid in stocking items and later finding the items you’re looking for.
• Provide between 20-50 lumens per square foot for livestock. Studies have shown that artificial lighting matching natural light as much as possible makes animals more comfortable and increases cows’ milk production.
• Provide between 50-80 lumens per square foot for workspaces. Especially if precision work including woodworking is required. Insufficient light can disrupt task efficiency and increase the risk of accidents. Too much light will result in wasted energy and additional electricity costs.

Ideal lights for inside a barn are High Bays, such as the ones e-conolight offers. As mentioned, mounting height must be taken into consideration. Here’s a general guide for that:

• Use 47,000+ lumens for a mounting height of 40 feet or more. This would include the savr® Linear LED High Bay | E-HBL Series and others.
• Use 35,000-47,000 lumens for a mounting height of 31-40 feet. Including the GKOLED® LED Linear High Bay | GKOMLHG Series and others.

Dusk to Dawn Lights for the Outside of a Barn

The following are general guidelines for lumen requirements for the outside of a barn, where the main goal is security.

• As a general rule, aim for 10-20 lumens per square foot on the outside of most of the barn. This deterrent to intruders and thieves will help provide security for equipment and livestock, not to mention yourself.
• In areas such as entrances and loading areas where more light might be required for safety and efficiency, increase that to 20-50 lumens per square foot.
• Depending on the structure of a barn, you may need to mount outdoor lights higher than normal, in which case you should increase lumen strength.

Your best bet for providing security for the outside of a barn – without wasting energy – are the Dusk to Dawn Lights e-conolight provides. Light sensors allow your lights to turn on at sunset and off at sunrise, which is one less thing you have to think about. And, of course, it saves on energy costs.

Examples of our Dusk to Dawn Lights you may want to consider are:

savr® LED Dusk to Dawn Light with Photocell | E-D2DS Series

• CCT & wattage selectable
• Delivers up to 16,100 lumens
• Gray housing
• UL listed

GKOLED® LED Dusk to Dawn Light with Photocell | GKODDG5 Series

• 4000K or 5000K
• Delivers 11,300 to 11,500 lumens
• Bronze or gray housing
• UL listed

C-Lite LED Dusk to Dawn Light with Photocell | C-AR-A-DD1 Series

• CCT & wattage selectable
• Delivers up to 12,100 lumens
• Gray housing
• cULus listed

Explore our selection of LED High Bay lights and LED Dusk to Dawn lights to find the perfect fit for your barn – inside or out.

You may feel perfectly comfortable making all your barn lighting decisions yourself. But if you believe you could use some help, e-conolight is here for you.

You’ll find our pricing very competitive. But to tip the scales even more in your favor, take an additional 10% off* simply by becoming an e-cono+® loyalty program member! It's absolutely free to join! Here’s to your bright future!

*Excludes clearance products, poles and bullhorns, T8 tubes and Cree Lighting® Noctura® Series. All returned items must be new and include their original packaging. Light poles and bullhorns are custom made and cannot be canceled or returned. Discontinued and Clearance products cannot be returned.